the strong old islander, who, after all, is your father, should happen some day to want a name on the back of one of his bills, I, for one, should not wonder to hear that at the time of presentation the name Jonathan is found scrawled across there in very decided characters. For we have answered that second question, too, so far as it lies in our power. It will be love and not hate between the two freest of the great nations of the earth, if our decision can so settle it. There will never be anything but love again, if England has the casting vote. For remember that the force of the decision of your great struggle has not been spent on this continent. Your victory has strengthened the hands and hearts of those who are striving in the cause of government, for the people by the people, in every corner of the Old World. In England the dam that had for so many years held back the free waters burst in the same year that you sheathed your sword, and now your friends there are triumphant and honoured; and if those who were your foes ever return to power you will find that the lesson of your war has not been lost on them. In another six years you will have finished the first century of your national life. By that time you will have grown to fifty millions, and will have subdued and settled those vast western regions, which now in the richness of their solitudes, broken only by the panting of the engine as it passes once a day over some new prairie line, startles the traveller from the Old World. I am only echoing the thoughts and prayers of my nation in wishing you God-speed in your great mission. When that centenary comes round, I hope, if I live, to see the great family of English-speaking nations girdling the earth with a circle of free and happy communities, in which the angels’ message of peace on earth and good-will amongst men may not be still a mockery and delusion. It rests with you to determine whether this shall be so or not. May the God of all the nations of the earth, who has so marvellously prospered you hitherto, and brought you through so great trials, guide you in your decision! THE END End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Vacation Rambles, by Thomas Hughes